The State Department’s Muslim Sisterhood: Part 1

No one has charged Huma Abedin with any crime, nor to anyone’s knowledge has she broken any laws. Yet remaining at issue is whether her established association with the Muslim Brotherhood poses a risk for the United States.

At best it is an egregious conflict of interest. At worst, it is a monumental breach of national security. Either way, Representative Michelle Bachmann and her congressional colleagues were absolutely correct in bringing the matter before the American People. This is not election year ‘gotcha’ politics.’

Nor was Ms. Abedin’s hiring, as some now suggest, a “systemic failure” in the State Department’s vetting process. To the contrary, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (both a former first lady and United States Senator) knows all too well the screening protocols required to obtain security clearance in the most sensitive areas of government. And it is a certainty she knows all about Huma Abedin.

Beginning with their days together at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Ms. Abedin and Mrs. Clinton have been virtually inseparable for the last 16 years. Mrs. Clinton has even referred publicly to Ms. Abedin as her “second daughter.”

If anything, Huma Abedin’s appointment in 2008 as deputy chief of staff is more likely an indictment of the Secretary of State’s own aspirations for global governance, which would include a prominent stake for the Muslim uumah.

But before we go there — let us begin with the facts of Huma’s biological family, assisted here by the impeccably researched details from Walid Shoebat, David Horowitz, Andrew McCarthy and many others. Our forthcoming Part 2 will then deal with the wildly disturbing bigger picture that has manifested at the Obama-Clinton State Department.

The Abedins’ Initiation into the Brotherhood

According to an internal Muslim Brotherhood document intercepted by federal investigators, the organization is dedicated to “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and by the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

Americans need to accept that these mantric ideals are not merely religious rhetoric designed to fire up the believers at home in the Middle East. It is a global doctrinal mission that pervades practically every aspect of the Brotherhood’s worldview of international Islamic law [Sharia] and culture.

Mr. Shoebat, a former Muslim Brotherhood member with firsthand knowledge of the group’s machinations, discovered what is effectively a companion piece to this intercepted Brotherhood document. He likens the uncovered manuscript to a “Saudi manifesto” for global Islamization.

“Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope. Allahu akbar!”

Written in Arabic, the volume was commissioned by now-deceased King Fahd. It lays out a comprehensive Saudi initiative to mobilize colonies of ‘Muslim minorities’ throughout the West “to introduce, to entrench, to elevate Sharia above all other law.” Among the sources it draws upon is a work entitled, “Muslim Minorities in the West.” It was written by none other than Sayed (Zyed) Zaynul Abedin, Huma Abedin’s late father.

In the late 1970s, Mr. Abedin was recruited from his home in Michigan to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to help launch the Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs(IMMA), an organization supported by the Muslim World League, a Muslim Brotherhood organization. The person responsible for Abedin’s recruitment? Abdullah Omar Naseef,who at the time was vice-presidentof the renowned King Abdulaziz University. The two had met years earlier when Mr. Abedin was a visiting professor there.

According to Discover The Networks: Dr. Naseef is a well-known Islamic extremist with a significant history of ties to al Qaeda. From 1983 – 1993, he held the position of secretary-general for the Muslim World League (MWL). Here the two men again joined forces in the early 1980s, with Mr. Abedin serving as a “counselor” for the MWL.

In a related concern, Dr. Naseef is also responsible for the creation of the Pakistan-based charity front group Rabita Trust, which was overseen by the MWL. The trust’s assets were eventually frozen and it was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government after 9/11.

The Rabita Trust secretary-general at that time was Wael Hamza Jalaidan, who helped found al Qaeda and was their chief of logistics. Prior to this, he headed the MWL itself in the early 1990s. He is also believed to be one of the first al Qaeda terrorists on American soil, directing the Islamic Center of Tucson (ICT) in 1986. Wadih El-Hage, an ICT colleague, was convicted of the 1998 conspiracy to bomb American embassies in Africa.

Dr. Naseef was also named as a defendant in the 2004 multi-trillion-dollar civil lawsuit filed by the families of the victims murdered on September 11th during the al Qaeda attacks.

Remember this man’s name for we will return to it.

The Abedin Matriarch: Saleha Mahmood

Sayed Abedin’s enlistment into the Muslim Brotherhood was just the beginning of what would become his family’s intimate working relationship with the extremist group, now spanning more than three decades and continuing to this day. Objectively, there is no other way to describe it; a political whitewash cannot defend it.

Sayed’s wife and Huma’s mother, Saleha Mahmood Abedin, is an influential founding member of the Muslim Sisterhood, the women’s club inside the Brotherhood. This pro-Sharia female faction is composed of the wives of some of the highest-ranking leaders in the Muslim Brotherhood. One particularly noteworthy member of the Sisterhood is Nagla Ali Mahmoud, wife of Mohammed Morsi, the Islamist who was recently confirmed as the “legitimately” elected president of Egypt in June 2012. (We will return later to Mr. Morsi as well.)

Taking notes: The Secretary of State with the Abedin matriarch, Saleha.

According to a report by the Egyptian opposition newspaper Al-Liwa Al-Arabi, the women of the Sisterhood are recruited to “smuggle secret documents; spread the Brotherhood’s ideology by infiltrating universities, schools and homes; fulfill the interests of the Brotherhood; and organizing projects which will penetrate [the Brotherhood’s] prohibited ideology into the decision-making in the West.” (Like perhaps infiltrating the foreign policy office of the most powerful nation in the world?)

Al-Liwa Al-Arabi reveals thatmany of these tactics are implemented under the guise of ‘general needs of women.’” In the case of Mrs. Abedin, she is also a board member of the International Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief(IICDR), a Union of Good-affiliated organization that has long been banned in Israel because of its ties to the terrorist organization Hamas. Here again, we find Dr. Naseef playing a central role, also serving as the IICDR secretary-general. Not surprisingly, he is as notable for his pro-Palestinian stance, as he is notorious for his anti-Israel crusade.

Saleha Abedin also directs the Amman, Jordan-based International Islamic Committee for Woman and Child(IICWC), a Muslim World League affiliate that identifies itself as part of the previously noted IICDR. Abiding by a charter authored by Yusuf al-Qaradawi and several other leading Muslim Brotherhood members, IICWC advocates the implementation of strict Sharia law and calls for the repeal of Egyptian statutes that currently ban female genital mutilation, child marriage, and marital rape. Because each of these practices finds doctrinal support in Sharia, the IICWC favors them.

The Abedin matriarch is perhaps best known for editing and translating the 1999 book by Fatima Umar Naseef, entitled, Women in Islam: A Discourse in Rights and Obligations. The work extensively quotes the writings of the ‘godfather’ of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sayyid Qutb. Although it is unclear, Fatima Naseef is believed to be the sister of the aforementioned Dr. Naseef. (Others believe she is one of his wives, or perhaps both sister and wife.)

Promoting Ms. Naseef as “a prominent Saudi scholar,” Saleha Abedin positions the book as “a comprehensive study of the rights and obligations of women in society from the Islamic perspective.”

From Andrew G. Bostom, reporting for Front Page Magazine: The book asserts that all Muslim women must wear the hijab, or veil; that Sharia offers women “the only escape” possible from the tyranny of manmade laws that “enslave” them; that female genital mutilation is permissible; that stoning and lashing are appropriate punishments for adultery; that apostates should be executed for abandoning the Muslim faith; that those who kill apostates should not be subject to the death penalty; that women are not only permitted, but obliged, to participate in violent jihad; that social interaction between the sexes is forbidden; that women have no right to abstain from sex with their husbands; that a woman should not let anyone into her family’s house unless approved by her husband; and that free speech should not be permitted if it does not “benefit” Islam.

Today Saleha Abedin remains heavily involved with the original IMMA, having taken over as its director following her husband Sayed’s death in 1993. She continues to serve as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs.

The Next Generation

The IMMA has long been the focal point for the Abedin family. Huma’s brother, Hassan Abedin, currently works alongside his mother as the associate editor of the same Journal house organ.

Further, it has recently come to light that Huma’s sister, Heba Khalid (a.k.a. Khaled; nee Abedin), is also a member of the IMMA editorial board, serving as assistant editor. A screen grab of the board with these family members is shown below from the IMMA website.

Which brings us to the current deputy chief of staff at Hillary Clinton’s State Department, Huma Abedin herself.

Ms. Abedin is also a veteran of the IMMA, having served as assistant editor of the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs (JMMA)for 12 years from 1996 – 2008, Interestingly, her position with IMMA coincides with the beginning of her White House internship, working for then-first lady, Mrs. Clinton. In fact, Ms. Abedin’s entire tenure with the organization took place while in the employ of Mrs. Clinton, including during her stint as United States Senator from New York. This is startling.

But most alarming is that Ms. Abedin’s time at IMMA coincided with that of Abdullah Omar Naseef. In fact, Dr. Naseef had an active presence at IMMA during her first seven years there. They served together on the JMMA editorial board from 2002 – 2003.

Dr. Abdullah Omar Naseef: Muslim Brotherhood bigwig and al Qaeda financier served on the board with Huma at the IMMA, which he founded with her father.

Let’s be absolutely clear about this point: Huma Abedin worked with Abdullah Omar Naseef, an indicted al Qaeda financier, for seven years — even serving with him on the same board together — all the while she was working for Hillary Clinton at the White House and United States Senate.

According to Aaron Klein at World Net Daily: “Naseef’s sudden departure from the board in December 2003 came at a time in which various charities led by Naseef’s Muslim World League were declared illegal terrorism fronts worldwide, including by the U.S. and UN.”

Yet this is not the only instance of her association with the Muslim Brotherhood. In 1997, Ms. Abedin also ended up on the Muslim Students Association (MSA) Executive Board after enrolling at George Washington University (GWU). Her departure date is unknown, although it is believed to be some time before early 1999.

The MSA was identified as a Muslim Brotherhood front group in a 1991 document, which was introduced into evidence during the terror-financing trial of the Holy Land Foundation, a Texas-based “charity.”

An archived screen capture from the university’s own website outlines the MSA board and its members (below, courtesy of Mr. Shoebat and the Wayback Machine). It confirms her involvement in June of 1997, the same period in which she was working inside the White House for Mrs. Clinton.

Ms. Abedin was listed as head of the “Social Committee” in 1997.

Most assuredly, Ms. Abedin’s role and responsibilities as head of the MSA ‘Social Committee’ were not those of a party planner. As with most modern social groups and online sites (think LinkedIn or Facebook), this is as much about networking and recruitment as anything else. And the MSA, it turns out, is a most resourceful conduit for jihad, including Ms. Abedin’s GWU chapter.

According to U.S. government officials, one such leader was New Mexico-born Anwar al-Awlaki, described as a “senior talentrecruiter and motivator.” But Mr. al-Awlaki was much more than that; he was also an al-Qaida cleric and regional commander. In 2001, this high-level Islamic extremist was also on the MSA board serving as Chaplain of the same GWU chapter.

With a blog, Facebook page, and scores of YouTubevideos, Mr. al-Awlaki often called for jihad against the United States. Saudi news station Al Arabiya described him as the “bin Laden of the Internet.” Many of his videos were subsequently scrubbed from YouTube following requests from Congress.

Other notable MSA jihadists include convicted American student Ramy Zamza and Somali al-Shabaab leader Omar Hammami. Writer Ben Barrack, a Shoebat-colleague, reminds us that Mohamed Omeish was also a chaplain at GWU’s MSA chapter from at least October 1999 – April 2002, sharing the duties for a time with Mr. al-Awlaki.

In addition, Mr. Omeish was president of the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), a favorite Saudi charity of Osama bin Laden, according to Paul Sperry in his 2007 article for Front Page Magazine. The IIRO offices were raided a short time after the al Qaeda attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. on September 11, 2001.

Further, Mr. Omeish’s brother, EsamOmeish, director of the Muslim American Society, the Muslim Brotherhood’s quasi-official branch in the United States, was also a close Alamoudi associate. Yet Secretary of State Clinton saw fit to invite the man into a conference call the State Department had allegedly organized for improving relations between the United States government and the Muslim community.

Crazy stuff, right? Mr. Barrack brings it full circle with this neat recap: The IIRO was formed under the Muslim World League (MWL), again, a large Saudi Arabian umbrella group whose Secretary General from 1983 – 1993 was none other than Abdullah Omar Naseef. It’s important to remember at this point that from 1996 – 2003, both Naseef and Huma Abedin served on the Board of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs. Huma served on the IMMA Board as Assistant Editor from 1996 – 2008 while also serving on the same MSA Board in 1997 that would later welcome Omeish and al-Awlaki as Muslim “Chaplain(s).” As the leader of IIRO in the United States, Omeish led a group created with the help of Naseef’s MWL. (Incidentally, two IIRO branch offices – in the Philippines and Indonesia – were listed as terrorist entities by the United Nations as recently as May of 2011.)

Is it traveling too far afield to cite these notorious MSA members in the context of Huma Abedin?

Or is it a commonsense exercise of responsibly connecting the dots? Remember the federal government claimed it was exactly that failure that led to the jihadist attacks of 9/11 in the first place. You can’t have it both ways.

Are we suggesting then that Huma Abedin is plotting global jihad from her perch on Hillary Clinton’s shoulder?

Are we to believe that an 18-year-old Huma Abedin sought to gain a White House internship with the intent of helping execute an extreme strategy of Da‘wah at the highest levels of American government?

The truth is we don’t know her intent. But we most definitely support the position that inquiries need to be made on behalf of the American People — despite the bipartisan protestations of high-ranking members of Congress. Remember these are the same people that had previously embraced many of these extremists as ‘model’ moderate Muslim Americans.

More Questions

Did Huma Abedin ever interact or correspond with these extremist MSA members through her MSA ‘social committee?’

Are we to believe she was never aware of the Brotherhood’s long held view regarding infidels and their plans to infiltrate and destroy the West?

Are we to believe this intelligent woman was oblivious to the multitude of al-Qaeda and other jihadist connections throughout her 12-year stretch serving the Muslim Brotherhood’s IMMA and MSA?

Moreover, are we to believe that Hillary Clinton has been completely oblivious to Huma’s extracurricular activities for the last 16 years?

Are we to believe Huma remains immune to the religio-political influences of her own parents?

These are all rational questions. Any reasonable answers, however, will be far more difficult to come by. One thing should be obvious by now to all: Whatever the real story may be, it is much, much bigger than just Huma Abedin.

In Part 2 of this story, we will attempt to offer some plausible explanations of that bigger picture, based on the facts all around us, and filtered through an eye of vigilance.

Please check back or subscribe below for The State Department’s Muslim Sisterhood: Part 2 — coming soon.